


What's In A Name

by metatxt



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Babies, Bajoran Culture, Bajorans, Canon Compliant, Friendship, Gen, Gender Identity, Genderfluid, Loss, Occupation of Bajor, Post-Canon, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2015-04-26
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:35:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3822253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metatxt/pseuds/metatxt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira Nerys gives Kasidy Yates a crash course in Bajoran gender culture after Kasidy asks Nerys to name her soon-to-be-born baby. (Takes place Post Series-Finale!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's In A Name

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gogojojo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gogojojo/gifts).



> Beta'd by [projectcyborg](http://archiveofourown.org/users/projectcyborg/pseuds/projectcyborg)
> 
> A gift for [gogojojo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gogojojo/pseuds/gogojojo/): I had so much fun writing this piece! You had a couple of fics bookmarked that included gender identity exploration, so I was inspired to dig into Kira's relationship with her own gender a bit. I hope you enjoy reading it!
> 
> !!! SPOILERS FOR DEEP SPACE NINE SERIES FINALE !!!

The question didn’t quite come out of nowhere. It was true that Kira Nerys and Kasidy Yates had grown closer in the time since Commander Sisko ascended to live with the Prophets and Odo joined his people. Nerys had always enjoyed being around Kasidy at large social gatherings, but until recently, they had been more acquaintances than friends. Somehow, the absence of Odo and Benjamin took shape as a chasm that demanded to be bridged. And rather than silently drift toward their respective new beginnings, Nerys and Kasidy (and occasionally Jake) began a tradition of Friday night dinners.

Nerys had experienced this need to cling to her compatriots once before, after the Cardassian Occupation. Though that was different. During the Occupation, loyalties and friendships were everything, and loss was everywhere — looming over the horizon, an inevitability with no target or warning. In the resistance, they mourned their dead, trading stories around the fire or sharing a toast, but time marched forward without hesitation. And for as long as Nerys had known, that was normal. Only after the fighting had stopped did the weight of it all settle into place. By some accounts, a resistance fighter and her friends were each others' only witnesses to all they had gone through together in their cell. For Nerys, clinging to the friends who were alive helped stoke the memories of those who had passed. It kept her from falling into the abyss of pain and loss.

It was that way now. If Nerys was honest, she didn't expect to need quite so hard following the War with the Dominion. She had lost so many already. She had survived the Occupation, and the pointless murder of most of her resistance cell. But the death of Jadzia, the ascension of Benjamin, and the bittersweet goodbye with Odo left Nerys feeling raw and alone. And so Friday night dinners, with people who understood and could share their mourning. As they all adjusted to the rhythms of their new "normal," they carved out special time and effort for this new tradition. Kasidy was ferrying various shipments to and from Bajor (sometimes meeting with familiar merchants in the Alpha Quadrant, other times through the wormhole to new trading partners in the Gamma Quadrant), but she was nonetheless a regular Friday host. For Nerys, running the station was rarely predictable, but in spite of diplomatic meetings and the occasional security skirmish, she always found a way to dinner. If Jake wasn’t off chasing a story, he would join. And every now and then, Ezri too. But tonight, it was Kasidy and she alone. Tonight, Kasidy raised the question.

  
  


“You want me to name your child… the Emissary’s child,” Nerys slowly repeated back to Kasidy, trying (and failing) to mask her incredulity.  
  
“Well, I'm going to be living here with the baby, and you and I have grown close, and well, I wanted a Bajoran name. Benjamin is part wormhole alien or Emissary or Prophet or I don’t know and it just seemed…”  
  
Nerys met her eyes and softly said, “right.”

The weight of the question hung thick in the air, and then Kasidy’s words came tumbling out like a spilled sack of katterpods. “You don’t have to decide now and we can talk about what that would mean and whatever role you want to have in the baby’s life, I just thought, well, I’d like for them to be connected somehow to Bajor …and to you.”  
  
“Wow, that's…”  
  
“Think about the life this baby will have: I’m not in the Federation. I contract with Bajor. I live on Deep Space Nine, the crossroads of the galaxy. I’m raising this baby, but they will be a part of this community too. This community will raise the baby too. A community that you shaped and built— "  
  
“With Benjamin.”  
  
“Yes, with Benjamin. That you kept going after he left. And you and I, well— "  
  
“—we've become friends.”  
  
“Exactly." With that admission Kasidy found her stride. "And when I think of the community I’m a part of, the people I want to shape and influence this child’s life, I think of you.”  
  
“Wow.”  
  
“Like I said, whatever role you want or don’t, think about it. We can talk about it.”

  
  


Kira was fortunate for her position in the Bajoran Militia, for her subsequent assignment to Deep Space Nine, and for how both of those facts gave her somewhat easier access to consult the Orbs for situations like these. Her mind raced as she made her way to the temple at the Promenade. If this weren't the Emissary's child, she might feel differently. This was almost like serving as Pagh-bearer, a guardian of the child's development and relationship to Bajoran culture and traditions. Only this child had perhaps the greatest possible connection to Bajoran spiritual lineage, and here she was being asked to help teach them what that means. Moved as she was by Kasidy's gesture, the prospect of performing the role felt overwhelming. If not the Kai himself, at the very least a Vedek should name the child, guide their connection and relationship to Bajor. Did Kasidy even understand what it would mean for her to name the child? Did she just want something that sounded Bajoran? No! No. Kasidy's reasons sounded genuine and meaningful, not superficial. The question was not whether Kasidy's baby should have a Bajoran name and Pagh-bearer, but whether she, Kira Nerys, could rise to the honor of serving the child in that way. It was a heady question. Nerys took a deep breath and crossed the temple threshold. Hopefully, the Orb of Community could help her understand what role she should take in Kasidy's baby's life.

  


* * *

  


“It means radiant spirit," Nerys said. "Well the first part does.”  
  
Kasidy scrunched up her face. “I like the first syllable! The meaning is so beautiful. Now we just have to figure out how to choose the end of the name.”  
  
“Well no one really chooses the ending!” Nerys said with a laugh. "Well, on second thought, I guess _someone_ does someday."  
  
“Who? When? How are we supposed to give this baby a name without an ending? Your name has an ending… doesn’t it?”  
  
“Yes! NER-YS. In all your trade and travels, the time you spent working with the Maquis, did no one ever explain Bajoran names and gendering to you?”  
  
“Well no, no one ever explained Bajoran genders to me as some sort of anthropology lesson. But I picked things up quickly. I had to learn this stuff to do business.”  
  
_Of course… but no one ever—_  
  
"—I know a lot about Bajoran genders!”  
  
"Oh? Tell me!" Nerys couldn't stop smiling. This would be fun.  
  
“Well, there aren’t two! Or even three! Subtle things that might seem like the same gender to me are actually important distinctions. Bajorans seem to have many more shades of nuance. At home, we’d probably call some of these characteristics ‘personality’ or ‘style.’”  
  
Part of Nerys wanted to jump up and exclaim: _What do you think gender even is, if not partly style and personality?!_ But gender was a joyful dimension of Bajorans’ lives, and she didn't want to embarrass Kasidy when she was so eager to learn and share. 

Kasidy was on a roll. "I bet you never had 'opposite sex' couplings either! Or do you have opposites? Are certain genders opposites?"  
  
Nerys’s face fell. Kasidy was so delighted to learn more about Bajoran traditions, and here the ugly face of the Occupation came roaring in to muddy it all.  
  
“For a time." Kira's words came out clipped and short, like if she held her tongue the memory would stay at arm's length.  
  
“A fifty year time? The Cardassian Occupation? Damn. You don’t have to..."  
  
“I mean, if you want to know?” Nerys said quietly.  
  
Kasidy hedged, “only if it’s not too — well I want to say painful, but I’m sure it’s painful — if you don’t mind, then.”  
  
Nerys smiled. “I don’t mind.” She took a deep breath. “Cardassians like order and structure. But then, we have order and structure, it just… doesn’t really translate perfectly into theirs. We didn’t lose our traditions entirely — it wasn’t like that. But there was a divide between the way we spoke of ourselves, of each other, when the Cardassians were around or nearby, versus when we were alone, when we could honor each other and our spirits.”  
  
Kasidy reached out to squeeze Nerys's arm.  
Nerys thought of the baby. “Every Bajoran child knew from a young age that they had a ‘legal name’ and a ‘true name’ that was theirs to find.”  
  
“So were you always Nerys?” Kasidy asked.  
  
"I'm not sure 'always' is a word we'd ever apply to gender, though I am familiar with how that works for humans." Nerys laughed. “I suppose my true name was always Nerys, but it wasn’t always the one I found. My given name, my legal name, was Nerais. And for a time I went by Neryn. I think part of me was always circling to Nerys."

And it was true. Mostly true. Nerys did not mention that she had been called Nerys at an earlier point in her life, before her first memories. She wouldn’t even know it now, if she hadn’t journeyed back with the Orb of Time. Meeting herself as a child was startling. Hearing her name, this gendering of her name — Nerys — spoken by her mother. It was a homecoming she could never have imagined.

"So _you_ choose the ending," Kasidy said.  
  
"Yes. The end changes. Our names, wherever they begin, take shape in familiar, recognizable conclusions that tell the world who we know ourselves to be. Do we wear dresses? Or dance with our hands to our waist? Do we speak softly in sweet tones? Do we move with our hips when we walk or more straight-legged? Do we dream of ourselves as quiet strength or playful daring? These are qualities that may be easily read from knowing us, but at its heart, a Bajoran name affirms the person you are continually becoming."  
  
Kasidy smiled at Nerys. "That sounds like a beautiful tradition." 

"So then if the ending changes..." Kasidy paused, looking to Nerys for confirmation.  
  
"Then, yes! We can choose a different ending for now, a placeholder, but prepare yourself, they may want to change it to the one you didn't like." Nerys smirked at the imagined gender-rebellion.  
  
Kasidy held up three fingers. "Girl Scout Promise, I will honor whatever gendered name my child chooses."  
  
"So, how would you feel about 'Zorya'?" Nerys grinned.  
  
Kasidy beamed. "Zorya."


End file.
